Issue - meetings

(a)          That the Month 8 Revenue Budget Monitoring Report be received;

(b)          That no formal recommendations be made to the Cabinet on this occasion, but concern at the significant overspend in minor adaptations be registered; and

(c)          That the Committee notes the Corporate Finance Manager’s (Section 151 Officer) comments that this reports contains the outturn figures which have been used for the preparation of the 2016/17 budget. 

The Corporate Finance Manager introduced a report to provide Members with the Revenue Budget Monitoring 2015/16 (Month 8) for the Council Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which was to be submitted to Cabinet on 16^th February 2016.

                        For the Council Fund, the projected net in year expenditure was forecast to be £0.743m lower than budget which was a positive movement of £0.356m from Month 7.  Appendix 1 detailed the movements from Month 7 with the main changes being an underspend in Children’s Services of £0.091m for Out of County Placements that had ended earlier than anticipated and £0.100m for an allocation of funding from the contingency reserve to partially mitigate for the increase in use of professional support.  At the beginning of the financial year, an amount had been set aside in Central and Corporate Finance for inflation costs and an amount of £0.110m for food and pay inflation was no longer required. 

The Programme of Efficiencies was reported in paragraphs 1.05 to 1.07 and it was currently projected that £10.702m (83%) would be achieved; appendix 3 provided details on the latest variation to the level of efficiency achievable compared to the budget.  Taking into account previous allocations and the current underspend at Month 8, the balance on the Contingency Reserve at 31^st March 2016 was projected to be £4.379m.  The Corporate Finance Manager commented that it was important to note that this report contained the outturn figures which had been used for the preparation of the 2016/17 budget. 

The HRA was projecting in year expenditure to be £0.149m lower than budget and a projected closing balance as at 31 March 2016 of £1.386m, which at 4.48% of total expenditure satisfied the prudent approach of ensuring a minimum level of 3%. 

                        In referring to page 61, Councillor Richard Jones sought clarification on the efficiency measure for £0.100m which was now considered to be unachievable with regard to minor adaptations.The Chief Executive confirmed that the £0.100m efficiency had not been achieved but work on other efficiencies had funded the development of the means testing approach.  The Corporate Finance Manager provided details of another example within the Central Loans and Investment Account (CLIA) which had met a previously reported underachievement of an efficiency of  of £0.600m through other compensatory savings..  Councillor Jones also queried why the entry for staff car parking was no longer showing in appendix 3 when it had been reported the previous month.  The Corporate Finance Manager advised that information sent out by the Member Engagement Manager the previous day explained that the efficiency had been included under both Streetscene & Transportation and Central & Corporate Finance but had now been removed from Streetscene & Transportation.  The Chief Executive confirmed that the staff car parking efficiency would achieve a nil return for 2015/16 due to the delay in its implementation.

                        Councillor Arnold Woolley queried whether the Council would adopt a policy on how to deal with levels of reserves if the proposal to merge authorities took place.  The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 84